Day 5 - Tuebingen and Stuttgart
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2008
1
4
28
Trip End
Jan 26, 2009
Tuebingen,
Germany
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Rose took us down to the Pfaeffingen station and Penny and I then disgraced ourselves by missing the train to Herrenberg (which we would be mocked mercilessly for later).
Although it would be inappropriate to assign blame one could confidently say that missing the train was entirely Penny's fault, but since Darren does not want to be abandoned in a country in which he cannot speak the language he left it to Rose, Uli, Lorenz and Linus to point this out.
We killed some time in the DM chemist shop to buy some supplies then stood on the freezing platform until the train arrived
Hoelderlinturm in Tuebingen
. We eventually arrived in Herrenberg and promptly missed the train to Stuttgart. Don't ask.Now that we had 30 min to explore the wonders of the town we trekked up through the old part of town through the market place and up to the church. It really was quite a pleasant little spot.
We got back to the station, got on board the train to Stuttgart and disembarked at the somewhat dirty Hauptbahnhof, then made our way to the tourist office to get a city map. We quickly decided to do the walking tour that was marked on the map.
We went to the main station tower with the rotating Mercedes Benz logo on top and found that the elevators were either full or not working so we climbed 10 flights of stairs to get up to the top and were rewarded with a very nice view of the city.
Headed back downstairs and across to the Planetarium which had no tours for a couple of hours so we followed the walking tour map, via a few theatres and libraries, to the history museum where there was a temporary exhibition on Erwin Rommel
Neues Schloss in Stuttgart
. It was all in German, which was ideal as Darren couldn't understand it but already knew a lot, and Penny, whose grasp of German history really isn't as firm as it probably should be, could understand it and learned a lot. It was very interesting and inspired Penny to buy her first book of the trip, a biography of Rommel.The rest of the walking tour was mildly interesting, leading Darren to suggest that Stuttgart is to Munich as Perth is to Sydney (Rose thought more like, as Albany is to Sydney) and reminding Penny of why she used to go there mostly to shop. We finished with a Bratwurst for Darren and a Gluehwein for Penny at the winter market that was still operating next to the ice skating rink in the centre of the town.
The trip back to Poltringen was mostly uneventful apart from getting off at the wrong bus stop on the way home and having to walk somewhat longer than we should have. We were just in time for dinner - Kaesespaetzle, which we could eat in good conscience knowing that we had done a LOT of walking during the day.
After dinner we headed out to Tuebingen to visit Osiander, one of the best bookshops on earth in Penny's opinion, and to make our second attempt in one year to visit the Neckar-Mueller brewery/pub for a drink. It appears we will have to visit Tuebingen at a different time of year to go there, as once again it was closed for the holidays. After a lot of very un-German conversation of the order of, "Where would you like to go now?" - "Oh, I don't mind," we decided to end Rose and Uli's rare night out on the town in favour of going home to work on the stacks of beer in their cellar. Beer, schnapps, biscuits and good conversation followed - though Penny was distracted by a book Rose had lent her called "Feuchte Gebiete" ("Damp Places"), apparently a German bestseller - if you read German, I don't recommend it. Revolting but strangely fascinating. Really revolting.
